21. Archer
21
Archer
I sit hunched over on the black leather sofa in my office, my mask clinched tight in my fist.
How could I have been so stupid? I knew—I knew I was going to fuck this up. I should have told her when I had the chance. Now, I’ve lost the first woman I have ever genuinely cared about.
No—I refuse to believe that. I meant what I said before she walked out. If she runs, I will find her.
She is mine, and I don’t plan on letting her go—ever. Until she tells me directly to fuck off, I don’t plan on leaving, and even then, I’m not sure I could walk away completely. I will spend what’s left of my miserable little life working to earn back her trust, her forgiveness.
Jayce drops onto the sofa beside me. I didn’t even hear him come in.
“How did it go?” I ask him, knowing he must have just come from taking Maggie home. He shrugs. “I don’t know. She didn’t say anything to me.”
“She got home okay, though?”
“Yeah. I stayed and made sure she got inside before I left.”
“Thanks.” I hang my head in my hands, pulling at my hair. This is all wrong. I should’ve been the one to take her home. I should be there with her now. I hate the thought of her in that empty apartment, dealing with all this alone.
“So…you gonna tell me what happened? Although I think I can guess,” he says, staring pointedly at the mask still clutched in my hand.
“Yeah. You probably could.” I throw it down on the table, angry with myself for being so stupid. “I must have left it sitting out, and she found it when she was in here using the bathroom.”
“And since you had me drive her home, I’m assuming she didn’t take it well.”
“No,” I answer, massaging my temples. “I will say, she took the part about my past a lot better than I thought she would, but she was furious I didn’t tell her the truth.”
“Can you blame her?”
I shake my head.
No. I can’t. If I lose her, I know I’ll have no one to blame but myself.
“Well, it looked like things were beginning to wind down. I’m going to get back out there, but let me know if there’s anything I can do.” He claps me on the shoulder before walking out the office, leaving me alone once again with my thoughts.
There was a point in my life when that was all I wanted: to be alone. I was resigned to the fact that I was destined to live out my days by myself, never believing I was deserving of the kind of happiness someone like Maggie could give me, but now, the thought of going back to that empty house without her makes me sick to my stomach.
Not wanting to be around anyone else right now, I pick up my suit jacket from the arm of the sofa and quietly slip out the back door.
I’m almost to my car when my phone rings. I fumble around, trying to fish it out of my pocket, thinking it might be her, but my heart deflates when I see it’s Beckham.
“Hello.”
“Hey man. I know it’s late, but I got some interesting information, and I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”
Dread sours my empty stomach like spoiled milk. Something in his tone tells me I’m not going to like whatever he has to say.
“I’m not gonna lie, it took a lot of digging, but I was finally able to figure out who Maggie’s birth mom is, and we were right. She did use an alias on the adoption records. Her real name is actually Cara White, and as it turns out, Cara and Maggie’s adoptive mother, Jane, know each other.”
“And?” I say, pausing with my hand on the door handle. I don’t see the big deal here. I assumed that they would have had to know one another somehow. Maggie said herself that she’d interacted with her birth mom on several occasions. I’m sure Jane knew this.
“Apparently, they both grew up in the same foster home until Jane turned eighteen, leaving a thirteen-year-old Cara behind.”
I’ll admit, that is a little interesting, but I still don’t see how it’s relevant.
“Now this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. It looks like Cara bounced around from home to home, each one worse than the other, until she aged out at eighteen, when she basically disappears.”
Finally opening my car door, I sink down into the plush leather and connect him to my hands free.
“Can you please get to the point?” I snip.
It has been a long night, and my patience has worn thin. He doesn’t speak for so long, I glance at my phone to make sure he didn’t hang up.
“The point,” he grits out, “is she was completely off grid for almost three years until one day, she mysteriously turns up in Boston, where I found an employment record as a barista at a coffee shop in Dorchester.”
I sit up straight. So that could be the missing link connecting Maggie to the Boston area, but it still doesn’t tell me why someone is after her .
There was no way Maggie ever lived there, and it doesn’t sound like Cara had any close relatives. At least, none willing to take her in. So why the sudden interest in Maggie? It still doesn’t make sense.
Lost in my thoughts, I must have stopped paying attention. It’s only when I hear a familiar name that I realize Beckham is still talking.
“Wait, what? Say that again.”
“Cara White is now known as Cara White-McGregor. Archer, Maggie’s biological mom is married to Colin McGregor.”
Fuuuuuck— and there it is, the shitty news I knew I wasn’t going to want to hear.
The McGregor family are old Irish money and about as corrupt as they come. Last I heard, Colin was set to take over the family business—the Irish fucking mob.
“So…what? Colin is her dad? Maggie told me her father was dead.”
“That I don’t know. There was no father listed on the birth certificate. However, rumor has it, she ran off with one of his guards—Maggie might be his kid.” I curse under my breath.
If that’s true, and Maggie is the product of her mother’s affair, then there is no telling what Colin plans to do to her. My heart beats violently in my chest, and I have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that something is very wrong.
“Thanks, man. I gotta go.” I hang up, slamming the car into drive.
The urge to get to her is so overwhelming that I’m sure I break several traffic laws, as I race to her building.
Expecting the worst, I’m surprised when I pull up and everything appears normal. Her lights are off, and all the doors and windows are shut. There is nothing at all out of place, yet that feeling doesn’t subside .
I open the app on my phone, relieved to see Maggie’s location is still pinging inside her house.
I sit here for several minutes longer, warring with myself on what to do. Although, I want to respect her request for space, I just can’t shake this feeling.
Finally, I give up, knowing good and damn well I’m not going anywhere until I see with my own eyes that she is safe.
Killing the engine, I walk up the sidewalk to the front door.
My chest tightens when I turn the handle and find the front door already unlocked, the alarm disabled. Pushing it all the way open, I know at once that Maggie isn’t here.
I try to remain calm, determined not to jump to conclusions. I search her empty apartment for clues on where she might have gone. It’s possible she didn’t want to be alone. She could have gone to stay with Jane or to a friend’s house— or she may have freaked out and ran.
But even as I think it, I know in my heart that Maggie didn’t leave of her own accord.
That suspicion is confirmed when I see her phone sitting on the nightstand, still plugged into the charger, her purse on the table. My shoe steps on something slippery, and I look down to see Maggie’s dress from tonight crumpled on the floor. I bend down to pick it up, red seeping into my vision when I notice several crimson drops on the floor.
I swipe my finger through the now cold blood, the tang of copper pennies making my stomach roll. I stand my hands tightening into fists .
Someone fucking took her from me.
They hurt her.
I swear to God, if she’s…
I don’t let myself finish that thought. Instead, I take three breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. I must keep a calm, level head if I’m going to get her back. Digging deep, I find that icy calm I would often call upon right before a hit.
Quickly formulating a plan, I pull out my phone. My first call is to Beckham, getting him to pull the security footage from around Maggie’s building, confirming what I already suspected. It showed an unconscious Maggie being carried out and put in the back of a blacked-out town car.
While I have him tracking down the vehicle, I call Jayce to fill him in.
Back in my car, I speed away from the curb, making a left turn at the stop sign instead of my usual right. I race down the empty streets to an address I have memorized but have never been to in order to confront a woman I’ve never met.
I had hoped that when I did, it would be under different circumstances, but I’m afraid it can’t wait any longer. Someone has stolen my Little Rose, and if what Becks said was true, then Jane Austin knows a lot more about Maggie’s past than she has been letting on. It’s time for some fucking answers.